


it sings in the blood

by sybil



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 16:52:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybil/pseuds/sybil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of 10 drabbles relating to Buffy, Spike, and that mangled thing they call a relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. disarm & destroy

**I. DISARM & DESTROY**

Her disdain stings, a self-righteous knife that cuts to the core of him.

But he lets the blows land, feels the crunch of cartilage as her sharp fist meets his nose. She doesn't understand that he cannot understand her need for martyrdom, to ruin her life over one body. When the venomous barbs leave her mouth in a poison river he begins to understand--even when her angry hands leave him.

She paints her self-loathing on him in brilliant red and the magnitude of it, the sheer force of her misery leaves him breathless.

Her footsteps resound with accusations, always retreating.

**II. I'LL FIND YOU IN THE FADING LIGHT**

She looks at Spike and realizes that things seem to make so much more sense when he's around.

He looks at her like she's a beacon of light in his world of darkness, a force of nature that he embraces even as she tears him apart. Willow, Xander, and the rest don't understand one iota of what she's going through, or how Death has changed her.

But he does.

And when she goes to him he does not expect anything from her, instead they fly through the night side by side. He tastes like dark chocolate and cigarettes, sinfully bittersweet.

  
**III. DEFINITIONS**

Love is letting her carry on with that Immortal twat.

Love is getting beaten down again and again and again. Telling him he's not good enough, he'll never be good enough until somehow he is and there isn't a shadow of another man eclipsing him and forcing him to wait in the wings. Love is staying away but keeping tabs, surviving the Battle of Los Angeles and denying the urge to find her and hold her and stroke her soft, soft skin.

It is the desire to do better, be better.

Love is the dust that falls, but never settles.

**IV. A RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD**

She feels like a stranger even to herself.

A blank face in a crowd of strangers that claw at her, take all the pieces away until there's nothing left but this thing that she's become. The sun shines bright but she doesn't see it, people say 'I love you' but she doesn't hear it. So far away from it all, something made from the cold and dark expected to walk in the light with the rest of them.

Instead she slips away and lets the shadow embrace her, runs through cemetery row with a man she loathes but cannot kill.

**V: A WARM GUN**

It's like playing Russian Roulette with a bullet in every chamber.

He stares down the barrel as he shoves her into the dewy grass, devours her mouth and runs his teeth over her bottom lip. She writhes and moans and pants and this time she isn't plasticine and clever wires and whirring gears; that's real blood that dapples those soft lips of hers. _Went and got myself a real girl._

Never lets him admire her though, every time he pulls away even a fraction she jerks him to her and begs to be resuscitated.

Sated, stretching he smiles his contentment.

**VI: EXECUTIONER**

She slices through the air, body a bending blade.

Her movements are smooth as she cleaves body parts but from their owners and deals the death card in the ever-shrinking circle closing in around her. Again she can feel his eyes on her and she can feel the smile reaching up to his razor blade cheekbones even in the dark. Charging ever forward without the luxury of falling back she feels the adrenaline and white hot heat roll off her.

Nighttime is her time, her best color.

She looks up as Spike approaches and smiles as she brings the sword down.

**VII: PLEADING**

"Oh please God not her."

It starts off as a moan of discontent that evolves over time. He's known this girl, this woman for what might seem like a very long time in human years. It is certainly the longest he's ever known any Slayer without opening their veins and drinking every last drop of their precious, noble blood. She treats him like a nuisance, like a neutered dog that doesn't even get a bone thrown his way for decent behavior.

"Oh please God not her."

The next time he says it he's weeping over a cold corpse.

_Not her._

_  
_ **VIII: TRUE NATURE OF FOREVER**

He offers her an eternity but he knows that she won't take it.

Instead he stays the same, sharp cheekbones and white hair and leather trenchcoats and she slowly but surely declines. When she gets her first gray hair she's nearly inconsolable, first serious wrinkle and she's two bottles deep in misery but he tells her that she's still beautiful. Even when he's holding her hair back as she shudders over the toilet the next morning.

When she passes into oblivion at last surrounded by loved ones he realizes the true nature of immortality lies in the memory.

_Sweet dreams._

**IX: BAD DREAMS**

"It's the principle of the thing, pet."

She rolls her eyes, watching the light bounce off his hair as he fails to readjust his shirt and coat, doesn't know how he can stand it. Turning on her heel she begins to walk away, a lecture on the tip of her tongue until...

"Buffy..." The lilt in his voice echoes of concern and she turns her head and sees the flames lick up his legs. His blue eyes go wide as he reaches out to her, finger tips crumbling to ash before making contact.

She wakes up, sweat drenched and shaken.

**X: HERE COMES THE SUN**

Sometimes he burns himself just for kicks.

He marvels at the way the skin begins to blister on the pads of his fingers, the way the burn is more like a tingle at first. Lips pursed in concentration he waits until the smell becomes unbearable before pulling his hand away.

She never invites him but here he is standing in the threshold, staring out at the brilliant light that crawls up and down the street. Little Bit is huffing and puffing about homework, asks hims a question about whether or not there had been vampires on the Titantic. Makes him leave cinders on the door jamb.


	2. it sings in the blood part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part II of the Drabble Collection I'm working on. Angst with a side of hysterical sobbing.

**XI. DIMPLES**

He watches her from afar, a cute little thing and not for the first time he wonders at how cruel the fates must be. Angel, the poor sod, he could see the look in Mr. Forehead's eyes as he looks at her and it gives a queasy little feeling.

But this golden-haired nymph smiles at him and for a moment he understands the feeling.

It's the same smile that Dru bestows on him every time he brings her a present only there is life in her smile and her eyes don't gleam with feverish madness. She won't be smiling long.

**XII. RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES**

Leaving Sunnydale behind was a bittersweet experience.

All the tragedies, all the hardships, and all the good memories were now in the crater that once was a town. Spike's ashes and the bodies of numerous Potentials buried forever while she lives. And god damn it she is really going to live. Cleveland is another opportunity and Robin takes up this new mission with renewed fervor and she can see him settling in for the long haul.

Lonely nights find her looking out the window of the dingy apartment she's staying in, finger tips splayed as if reaching for the past.

**XIII. WHAT WOULD NEVER BE**

The wedding makes her realize that she will never have one.

Anya looks amazing, makes Buffy forget to hate her for putting her in this swamp creature monstrosity. It is the promise of a forever that makes her insides squirm because it will never be possible; not as long as she is a Slayer. Not as long as she is who she is. All of them have chances to make these huge life events, take these enormous bounds into adulthood.

In her isolation she feels adrift until Spike's gaze lingers on her and she feels him pull her back in.

**  
** **XIV. GOODBYE IS NOT THE HARDEST PART**

It's staring down at her mother's coffin and knowing that she will never hear her say 'I love you' or 'be careful!'

Watching Dawn shudder and sob into her duvet because even though she had been implanted in their lives they all had memories that felt so real. They had been a family that she had taken for granted and now that it had been broken apart by she could only feel the hole it left, like walking into a cold draft.

The hard part is touching a cold tombstone and wishing that she had said more, done more.

** XV. WHISPERS IN MY HEAD **

They all taunt him, the long parade of victims that had fallen under his hand and fang. At first it starts as white noise but it builds and builds until a choir of angry voices is all he can hear. He stumbles back into Sunnydale and it becomes worse, the heavy weight of his humanity and the guilt that follows with it singes his insides but this is what he deserves.

_Right?_

He deserves to have that awful night replayed over and over where love and obsession cross wires, where he hurt Buffy and exposed a darkness he couldn't escape.

**XVI. I DON'T SHARE**

He was never one to share his playthings and he certainly would never share a lover.

But Buffy would never just be his and his alone. Her heart was uniquely trisected by himself, Angel, and Riley and although it gave him a kind of comfort to know that he would always be in there somewhere he was still greedy. A trait that would always linger on inside him, a dog that didn't like sharing his bones. He wanted all of her, all the good parts and the bad but she would always be the Slayer.

And he would always be himself.

**XVII. A PROUD, SHINING MOMENT**

Those green eyes used to look at him with disgust, an acidic loathing that had threatened to eat him alive. When he had begun to care about what she felt for him it was like swallowing lye and he found himself trying to prove that he was worth _something_ , that he was to be reckoned with.

And now in the basement of the Summers' residence on what could possibly be the last night on earth the look in her eyes stops him mid-rant. She hands the medallion over and her finger tips are a soft warmth.

He's finally done it.

**XVIII. HATE ME**

"I could never love a thing like you!"

Dehumanizing him is so easy, the hateful words that hiss from her mouth like a serpent. She injects all the venom she possesses into every syllable to hide the bleeding lump that dully beats against her rib cage. Theirs is a violent relationship built on body counts and stolen moments and she hates that needs him. Hates that she wants him.

In the thrall of her storm he doesn't flinch away from her, she sees the set of his jaw and knows that he knows the truth of her.

It's more than she can bear.

** XIX. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER **

He watches her constantly, cannot help but be drawn to her flame even though it burns him every once in a while.

All this time spent studying her he notices the way her mouth thins and her brows knit when she grows envious of her friends or normal people on the street. She craves normalcy and chases it like an addict chasing a fix. But she wasn't born for that kind of life and he wishes he could tell her that she wastes her time wanting to be in the crowd.

She was born for both better and terrible things.

**XX. VORACIOUS**

When the lullaby strains hit his ears he goes dark.

He loses hours and comes to with blood saturating his clothes, trickling down the side of his mouth. It is so fresh that it pulls him backward to a time when he could never get enough. When all that really concerned him was drinking, fucking, and killing and not always in that order. When Drusilla made him she also created a monster with an insatiable appetite for everything or else.

He used to want the kill, the fountains of blood, the tortured screaming.

He used to want it. Not anymore.


End file.
